Dash Stories

The old man was in my clinic for his first appointment with me.

“Could you please speak up?”  The old man turned his left ear toward me.  “Can’t hear out of the right ear at all.”

“How long have been deaf in your right ear?” I inquired.

“Since 1945. Damn M-1 carbine kept misfiring when I had it slung over my right shoulder,” the old man complained.

“Let’s see, you seem a little young for being in the military in 1945.”

And the old man continued-“I lied about my age. Couldn’t wait to get to the war-stupid teenage glory thing. Spent my 16th birthday in a foxhole during the Battle of the Bulge. Damn cold. Damn scary. But, hey, we all thought we were invincible . . . until we weren’t. Lost a lot of buddies over there.”

“How long were you in the Army?”

“Twenty-six years.  Retired in 1970. Stayed on in Germany after the war. Was a guard at Nuremberg.”

“Really? Can you tell me about that experience?”

And the old man continued-“I was a guard in the prison adjoining the courtroom that tried the Nazis—Göring, Hess, all those guys.”

“Does anything stand out to you?” I pressed.

“Well, the necktie party, of course!”

“Necktie party?”

“You know, the hangings. October 16, 1946. Got what they deserved. Göring dodged his noose. Took a cyanide tablet the night before.”

“Anything else exceptionally memorable?”

The old man became more serious, more pensive.

“Well, I guarded Hermann Göring a few times. Hated the guy, what he did and all. But when we stripped away his uniform, position and power and put him behind bars, he actually became a likable guy. Funny. Smart. Congenial. Under different circumstances, I guess we could’ve been friends. I genuinely liked the guy. Not proud of it but it is the truth. It is hard, even now, to get my head around both the news reel Göring and the prisoner Göring. It haunts me to this day. To think I could have actually liked that sort of man. Such an evil, evil guy.”

My wife, Diana, had prayed for him for years. He was just a name on a bracelet-

COL. GEORGE DAY, 8-26-67

She was given the POW bracelet in junior-high school in the early 70’s. She wore the bracelet and prayed faithfully for his safety, health, and safe return for years. In college, she lost the bracelet during a dorm move but she still continued to pray for Colonel Day.

Years later, in 1996,  Diana and I were married and I was a third-year family medicine resident at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. One weekend, we were at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base. I was checking out a static aircraft display and Diana tearfully called out to me.

“He’s alive! My guy made it! He actually made it! Thank you, God!”

Diana was standing beneath a plaque on the museum’s Wall of Honor. There was a huge grin on her face and tears in her eyes. The plaque above her detailed Colonel George “Bud” Day’s capture on 26 August 1967, his imprisonment in the Hanoi Hilton, his eventual release in March 1973, and his Medal of Honor and Air Force Cross citations. As we later learned, he not only “made it” but he was also a semi-retired attorney and lived near Eglin Air Force Base.

Some months later, we were dining at a restaurant just outside the base. Colonel Day walked in and took a seat at a table across the room. Diana stepped over to his table and tearfully shook the hand of the man on the bracelet, thanking him for his service and sacrifice and thanking God for his safe return.

The warrior and the prayer warrior—it was an awesome sight.

I was at the end of a week of S.E.R.E (Survive, Evade, Resist, Evade) training—better yet, lest I misrepresent, I should call it S.E.R.E.-lite training—it was by no means the intense course given to U.S. military air crews. This was simply a 1-week intro S.E.R.E. course given to 2nd-year Air Force Medical students at a military training area outside of San Antonio, Texas. After a week of instruction, we were ready for the capstone event, an evasion exercise.

It was nightfall and all the students were lined up at the top of a ridge overlooking a large tract of land composed of rock, brush, and gullies. Our objective was to make it to the outbuilding at the opposite side of the exercise area about 1/2 mile away without getting caught by the “enemy.” The “enemy” were our cadre S.E.R.E. instructors. Students who made it to the building without being apprehended were promised pizza. Those who were unsuccessful and apprehended would get the usual MRE. The thought of pizza sounded delicious. The exercise started at 9:00 PM sharp with a whistle blow.

I took a position of hiding just below the ridge and surveyed the small valley below me. Moonlight allowed a good view but did not bode well for us because the “enemy” had the moonlight too. As I watched from my hiding place over the next 15-20 minutes, it became very clear that the cadre (enemy) had done this exercise before. They knew every little crag and crack and there was literally nowhere to hide. My compatriots were being picked off and apprehended at will. No one was getting any farther than 3 or 4 hundred yards without being caught.

So I decided to get creative.

On the ridge behind me was a small service road. The road went along the perimeter of the exercise area and straight up to the outbuilding on the opposite ridge. So I scrambled back to the road and simply stood up and began walking along the road toward the building, not in a hurry, but with feigned purpose. The cadre “enemy” greeted me with waves and hellos as I walked but never challenged me. In short time, I walked through the doors of the little outbuilding and on the table were 5 Dominoes pizzas. The cadre member present informed me the pizzas were only for those students who successfully evaded capture.

“In that case, I’ll have a piece of pizza,” I informed the cadre member.

“But you were captured! Weren’t you? I saw you just walk up here like nothing”

“You just assumed I was captured. I decided to hide in plain sight. I evaded by not acting like I was evading.”

“It sounds like you cheated,” complained the cadre.

“I don’t believe there is such a thing as “cheating” in S.E.R.E., is there? Wasn’t that one of the main points? You do what you have to do to make it, right?”

“You have a point,” admitted the cadre member, “Enjoy your pizza.”

I dined alone that night.

The pizzas were delicious.

The old man tottered into the exam room, deftly placed his cane against the chair and took a seat. It was our first visit together. I was his new doctor.

“Good Morning, Sir!” I greeted him.

He rose to greet me with a firm handshake. In spite his 93 years, his wizened, proud bearing and firm grip betrayed a distant past.

We discussed a few formalities and then I asked him if he had ever served in the military.

“U.S. Army, 1944-1947,” he responded.

“What theater?”

“Pacific. New Guinea, Philippines, and Occupied Japan.”

He went on to tell me his story. A slight kid. 5 foot 2 inches, 120 lbs. He begged to enlist in spite of his 4F status. He was the only military-aged male left in his small rural Virginia town. The embarrassment was too much. He finally convinced a recruiter to turn a blind eye and before he knew it he was slugging it out in New Guinea. Due to his small stature, he became his unit’s “tunnel rat.” His job: descend into enemy tunnels armed with a knife and revolver and clear the tunnel. It was harrowing work.

From there, it was the Philippines with McArthur and more of the same.

“Does one day or moment stand out as the most difficult time for you while you were there?” I asked.

His response was halting and teary eyed as he described awakening in his foxhole in New Guinea one night to see his best friend’s throat slashed right in front of him. His friend had dozed off on watch, only to be overcome by a Japanese infiltrator. After killing his friend, the Japanese soldier leaped upon him. He vividly recalled the glint of Japanese steel covered in his buddy’s blood coming down on top of him. He twisted just enough to evade the full brunt of the knife, quickly dispatching the Japanese soldier with his own knife tucked under his ruck sack. “That was my toughest day.”

“How about your best day?”

A smile broke across his face. “That’s easy. 6 August 1945.”

“I thought it would’ve been August 15, VJ day.”

“Well, that was a good day too, but 6 August was my best day. It was the day Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.”

“Why was that day the best day?” I inquired.

The old man’s countenance turned grim. He continued. “We had heard of the carnage on Okinawa. And we are all in the Philippines training and preparing for the invasion of Japan. None of us expected to survive the invasion. We were ‘Dead Men Walking.’ And when we received news of Hiroshima, a glimmer of hope rose up within us that we might, just might, see our families and girlfriends again. We had hope again. We were alive again. It was a really, really good day.”

The young black man sat on the back row of the church. He quietly sat for the service, and at the end of service, quietly left. After several Sundays, I approached him. He nodded and smiled but it became clear he knew very little English. Over the next several months, we visited more often after Sunday church service as his English improved. Francis (Kokouvi Ametode) was a recent immigrant from Togo, West Africa working in housekeeping at a local hospital. He had won an American visa lottery, managed to cobble together barely enough money for airfare, and had arrived at Dulles International Airport several months prior, penniless, knowing barely a word of English. But he had big dreams. He was going to a local community college—his goal, medical school. One Sunday, while visiting after church service, he confided that his goals seemed more elusive than ever. The job sweeping floors at Suburban Hospital seemed bleak, empty and a dead end. The American Dream seemed very far off.